AGN’s Pill Not Approved!
Stocks were
mixed after a semiconductor downgrade.
Merrill Lynch downgraded the entire Semiconductor Capital Equipment sector to
Neutral, saying they are beginning to doubt whether the inventory rebuild that
the sector needs in order to support their industry estimates will occur; they
see no upside at this time. Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was also downgraded and
will report earnings tomorrow. NCR Corp raised its second-quarter
outlook; it now expects earnings of at least 35 cents a share with revenue to be
around $1.44 billion.
Novellus
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
posted earnings that beat estimates by 3 cents and reported sales that rose
41.5% for the quarter. The CEO said that they have strong operating level with
strength in its 300 millimeter wafers. Semitool
(
SMTL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) won a key
ruling against NVLS on a patent infringement lawsuit.
Lea Fastow, the wife of former
Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, began a one-year prison term today for filing a false
tax return.
Morgan Stanley will pay $54
million to settle a sex bias case brought by hundreds of women.
Shortly before the close, the
FDA rejected Allergan’s
(
AGN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) psoriasis pill. After the close, PEC
Solutions
(
PECS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) won a $5.2 million Homeland Security contract.
Compuware
(
CPWR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) guided lower for the June quarter.
| Dow | +25.00 | 10238.22 |
| S&P 500 | +1.54 | 1114.35 |
| Nasdaq | -9.41 | 1936.92 |
Strong today were: Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.63%, Telecoms
(
XTC.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.45%, Retail
(
RLX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.70%, Banks
(
BKX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.64%.
Weak today were: Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-2.20%, Networking
(
NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.99% Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.72%.
No economic news release today.
10-year Notes were +40
at 110 265.
The dollar
was -0.02 at 87.38.
Gold was +0.4 at 407.60.
Crude Oil was -0.64 at
39.64.
Volume was 1.11 billion
on the NYSE, and 1.49 billion on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1832 | Up Vol 500 |
| Declining | 1432 | Down Vol 552 |
| Ratio | 1.28 | 1.10 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 1280 | Up Vol 459 |
| Declining | 1819 | Down Vol 1010 |
| Ratio | 1.42 | 2.20 |
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Stocks in the news:
Smith Barney raised their target and
estimates on Qualcomm
(
QCOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) but was cautious in saying the WCDMA
expectations are rising too fast.
Cal-Maine Foods
(
CALM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose
after reporting earnings of $17.2 million with sales up 38%.
General Motors
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said China
auto sales rose 58% for the first half of the year to 259,653 vehicles from a
year ago.
MCI
(
MCIA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said Leucadia
National
(
LUK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) intends to purchase at least 50% of MCI’s common stock.
Brice Wightman
bricew@tradingmarkets.com